The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe

written inside me, at the local bookstore? Think about it. Try to remember. How long ago was it? It was still cold outside. You and your brother were all wrapped up in your thick coats. Remember going to a place where there were books like me, so many you could hardly count them?”
    Yuriko picked the book back up off the shelf and sat down so she could think better. When it was still cold? Wearing coats? With my brother—
    “And all of us went, our whole family?”
    “That’s right.”
    White breath puffing in the air. A place with so many books you couldn’t count them.
    Yuriko’s mouth hung open. “You mean my uncle’s cottage!”
    “Well, to be precise, he’s your father’s uncle, which makes him your great-uncle.”
    It had been the first Sunday of December the year before. The whole family had piled in the car.
    “I remember he had this incredible reading room there—it was like a whole library inside.”
    “And that’s where I was,” the red book said softly. “The Hero was there too.”
    But Yuriko was too busy thinking and remembering to hear his whispers. Where was her great-uncle’s vacation home, anyway? It couldn’t have been far, since they went there and came back in the same day, but it had been in the mountains—she remembered that well. And they had driven on some dirt roads to get there. She remembered her mother gasping at every bump.
    “How am I supposed to get all the way up there by myself? I don’t even know the address or the road.”
    “Well then,” the red book said, and she imagined a twinkle in his eyes. “This is your first test.”

CHAPTER TWO
    The Hermit’s Library
    Kids can think up great lies. They’re just not very great at telling them. In order to tell a really good lie, Yuriko knew, you first have to believe in it yourself. Emboldened by the red book’s encouragement, Yuriko spent the next thirty minutes getting ready. It was easy to come up with a suitable lie, but hard to make a convincing performance of it.
    It didn’t take much for her to wake her parents. Neither of them had slept particularly well since her brother’s disappearance. It was only recently that they even bothered with sleeping in their bedroom. For a while, they had just nodded off wherever they happened to be—in the living room, in a chair, or on the sofa. They had left the front door unlocked and would jump up and run outside at the slightest sound in the hope that Hiroki had come home at last. Finally, the police had told them they couldn’t keep on like that forever, and they had begun sleeping properly again.
    When Yuriko began her lie, her mother’s expression changed almost immediately. She wasn’t surprised or angry. A mix of joy and regret crept over her thin features. Why hadn’t she thought of it herself sooner?
    “I completely forgot about it myself, Mom,” Yuriko was saying. “He could hide out at our great-uncle’s summer cottage for weeks without anyone knowing.”
    “That’s right. Yuriko’s right,” her mother said as she shook her father by the shoulder with her left hand. Her right was around Yuriko’s shoulder. “I’ll bet Hiroki’s at the cottage!”
    “How would he get all the way out there?” her father groaned, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “He doesn’t have a car. He’s only in middle school.” He wasn’t buying it, but Yuriko detected a glimmer in his eye. He wanted it to be true; he just wasn’t letting himself get his hopes up.
    “Hiroki’s always done what he wants to once he sets his mind on something. And he’s smart too. And clever. I’m sure there are lots of ways he could have gotten out there. He could’ve hitchhiked.”
    Her mom was sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to leave that very instant.
    “Just wait,” her father said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
    “Well I can’t just sit around here doing nothing. Can you? What if he’s out there?”
    “Shouldn’t we tell someone we’re going?”
    “Who